[South Africa] Information Key to Fighting Poverty

from All Africa

Universal access to information and knowledge can yield positive spin-offs to help governments of the world meet the Millennium Development Goals to halve poverty and unemployment by 2015.

Commemorating World Press Freedom Day today, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said freedom of expression was central to promoting civil participation as well as encouraging human development and security.

He said UNESCO emphasised the concept of "knowledge societies" as it recognised the role of the media as well as the information and communication technology (ICT) in expanding access to information.

This, Mr Matsuura said would contribute towards meeting the MDGs while also bridging the digital divide in the world.

More than one billion people in the world live below one US Dollar per day per day while another 2.7 million live on less than two US Dollars per day.

To combat these shocking statistics, the UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 made poverty eradication the highest priority among the goals of the international development community.

Mr Matsuura said free and independent media should be recognised as a key element of eradicating poverty.

"First, free and independent media serve as a vehicle for sharing information in order to facilitate good governance, generate opportunities to gain access to essential services, promote accountability and counteract corruption..." he said, adding that free media had potential to develop relationships between informed citizens and elected officials.

In this regard, he added that media operating in a democratic system were associated with benefits relevant to tackle poverty.

These include political transparency as well as education support and public health awareness - such as education campaigns on HIV and AIDS.

Mr Matsuura also said there was a relationship between freedom of expression and higher incomes as well as low infant mortality and increased adult literacy.

These sentiments were also echoed in a document adopted at the World Summit in Information Society held in Tunisia last year, where 176 participating states reaffirmed freedom of expression as essential to development.

"Thus, World Press Freedom Day 2006 provides an occasion for considering the important questions of how a free press can help eradicate poverty and how freedom of expression and press freedom can assist in achieving the MDGs.

"In so doing, it becomes clear that the defence of one fundamental human right - the right to freedom of expression - may directly protect several others, thereby showing how rights protections are interwoven intellectually, morally, and in practice," said Mr Matsuura.

Mr Matsuura however condemned the killing of journalists around the world.

According to statistics from the International Federation of Journalists, about 150 journalist and media personnel were killed on duty last year.

"This is the largest annual number of media professionals killed in recorded history, and represents a tragic continuation of a statistical trend that has been rising over the past several years; being a journalist is very dangerous and, sadly, is becoming more so," he said.

More than 500 media professionals were also detained or imprisoned.

Specific conflicts have also recorded a number of killed and injured journalists, with the war in Iraq claiming 60 lives between March 2003 and December 2005.